reviews

​Benny Turner, Cash McCall (from the album Going Back Home available on Nola Blue Records)Taking a friendship that began sixty years ago back into the studio, Chicago Bluesmen Benny Turner and Cash McCall present the results with the recent release, Going Back Home. After several decades of following individual careers, Benny Turner shared that ‘a death in the gospel world inspired me to contact my old friend Cash. I had no idea about his health problems and wanted to do whatever I could to help. Getting him involved in a music project seems to have been the best medicine in the world for him, because he is really excited about it. I asked Billy Branch if he was available to be a special guest on the record, and he didn’t hesitate for a minute to say, ‘Count me in!’. Recording Going Back Homewhile fighting lung cancer, Cash McCall partners with Benny Turner to curate and rework a batch of Chicago Blues standards.

Tampa Red’s “It Hurts Me Too”, a playful shuffle into “Poison Ivy”, and a tribute to Howlin’ Wolf and Freddie King on “Spoonful” put a musical history of Chicago on display. Going Back Homedoubles up on nodding to the music of Elmore James, re-working his tune “One Way Out” as “It’s a Man Down There” while Benny Turner and Cash McCall take on the Bluesman barroom shout out “Shake Your Money Maker”.